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America's most famous Jesuit has a great gift for spiritual writing. But his polemics have helped to widen the Church's divisions

Fr James Martin SJ is an American priest and author who has cornered the market in affable and polished liberal Catholicism. He is the most famous Jesuit in the United States; probably the most popular, too. And also the most disliked. Hated, even.

The name will mean nothing to most British Catholics. Nor will the phenomenon of the simultaneously admired and despised media priest. The Catholic Church in this country is only mildly affected by the culture wars. We can all think of a few pugnacious traditionalist clergy and their smarmy liberal counterparts but there is no one who can give a talk on Jesus that (a) fills every seat in a major cathedral and (b) draws a crowd of protestors outside who accuse him of leading souls to hell.

Why is Fr Martin such an affront to conservative Catholics? Hes a liberal Jesuit, but that is hardly a novelty. And hes not a very liberal Jesuit, compared to, say, the peace activist Fr Daniel Berrigan, who once broke into General Electric premises to damage nuclear missile nose cones and pour blood on documents.

That was in 1980, two years before James Martin also entered General Electric as a trainee accountant fresh out of Pennsylvanias elite Wharton Business School.

Fr Martin, 57, was not quite one of the heartless Wall Street Masters of the Universe depicted in Tom Wolfes Bonfire of the Vanities but, as a highly paid young graduate in mid-Eighties Manhattan, he hung out in bars on the Upper East Side where there was cocaine in the bathroom for the adventurous. And he took pride in stepping over the homeless.

Martin tells us this in his book In Good Company, his account of getting fed up with the petty cruelties of corporate America and joining the Jesuits at the age of 26. Its not a very interesting book, considering the subject matter. Jim was a rather conventional young man. Its hard to imagine him joining the coke-snorting adventurous in the bathroom; his only love affair seems to have been with Brooks Brothers, purveyor of button-down shirts to conservative preppies.

When he joined the Jesuits he was asked whether he was a virgin and said no. This was the right answer seminary directors in the 1980s preferred applicants to have had a bit of experience but he adds that it was also a lie.

He grew up in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, and although his parents didnt go to Mass every Sunday their son did. Apart from a brief loss of faith at university, he never stopped practising, avoiding self-consciously trendy churches in favour of parishes with proper choral music. He decided to become a priest because he was worried by his drift into selfishness and felt he had a vocation.

Martin soon discovered that life in the Society of Jesus contained its fair share of petty corporate cruelties including the indignity of having to wear a black shirt made out of the dreaded polyester. But they were easily outweighed by the satisfying rigour of Ignatian spirituality, about which he writes with a warm and inviting fluency. Thirty years on, he has never regretted becoming a Jesuit not even when clipping the toenails of old men in a Jamaican hospice. Posted to Nairobi, he used his Wharton training to help refugees set up small businesses.

Whats not to like? Or, rather, what is there to dislike so intensely about a priest who is always scrupulously polite and has always been careful not to dissent from the Magisterium of the Church? British Catholics find the passions he arouses rather puzzling. But American Catholics dont. Or, to put it another way, the phenomenon of James Martin SJ tells us a lot about the differences between the Church in Britain and the United States.

In middle age, Fr Martin has moved to the Left. He hasnt drifted into progressive politics, as some priests do: rather, he has danced his way from one bandwagon to the next, acquiring a formidable following along the way. He has nearly 200,000 followers on Twitter, but his fan base predates social media.

He is at ease to put it mildly in Hollywood. He prepared the late Philip Seymour Hoffman for his role as a suspected sex abuser with a twinkle in his eye in the film Doubt. More recently he took the Spider-Man heartthrob Andrew Garfield, who played a Jesuit in Martin Scorseses Silence, through the Spiritual Exercises. As a result, Garfield from an agnostic Jewish background says he found himself falling in love with Jesus Christ. According to America magazine, the dogmatically left-liberal publication that tirelessly promotes Martin, the priest was hesitant about the experiment.

His critics find that hard to believe: they see Jim Martin as a self-promoter and celebrity-hunter. This may or may not be fair but its worth asking why celebrities respond to this Jesuits message. Is it because he tells them what they want to hear?

Not necessarily. You cannot understand Fr Martin without reading The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, a far better book than his anodyne spiritual autobiography. Its an elegantly written, user-friendly guide to something very tough: the spirituality of St Ignatius Loyola, which requires almost obsessive self-examination. Martins own commitment to this process is surprisingly fierce: for example, he loves the austerity of daily Mass. He name-checks all the usual liberal suspects Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Sister Helen Prejean but also writes admiringly of Cardinal Avery Dulles, Michael Novak and Evelyn Waugh In other writings he has berated Hollywood for its anti-Catholicism, and especially its sneering attitude towards celibacy.

And yet unfortunately there is another side to Fr Martin, one which has become intrusive since the election of Pope Francis. He thinks more clearly than the first Jesuit pontiff but, to an even greater degree than Francis, he embraces the fashionable consensus on just about everything in a manner which inevitably alienates conservative Catholics. And, like the Pope, he doesnt necessarily help the people whose suffering he is trying to address.

Has Amoris Laetitia made life easier for divorced and remarried Catholics, who now find themselves at the centre of one of the most unproductive rows in Church history? Its increasingly clear that the answer is no. Likewise, James Martins Building a Bridge is not the priceless gift to gay Catholics that its fans clearly think it is.

This short book is pompously subtitled How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity. The message is that Catholics in same-sex partnerships can be reconciled to the Church through the exercise of these virtues. But can they? Surely there is an insurmountable barrier to reconciliation namely, the Churchs teaching that all homosexual acts are sinful.

This is something Fr Martin refuses to debate. Many gay Catholics are appalled by a teaching that, in their view, is tantamount to the Church saying that its OK to be left-handed so long as you dont write with your left hand. Building a Bridge does not defend the Church against this charge; nor does it propose any change to teaching. As the conservative Catholic columnist Matthew Schmitz observes, it skips over fundamental questions of sexual morality and concentrates instead on good manners.

The paradoxical effect has been to provoke displays of aggression by some conservative Catholics. There has always been a fine line between defending the Churchs prohibition on homosexual acts and being nasty about gays. That line has all but disappeared since the books publication thus appearing to strengthen Fr Martins case. He knows that, if you goad your opponents, they will play into your hands with ad hominem attacks. Pope Francis knows it, too. So does the Holy Fathers close ally, Fr Antonio Spadaro.

Is it a coincidence that all three men are Jesuits? Fr Martin loves to deplore personal attacks on liberal priests yet he does so in a passive-aggressive manner that only makes matters worse. His enemies call him slippery Jim. That sounds mean, but perhaps they have a point. For example, Fr Martin is on record as saying that he will never oppose Catholic teaching on homosexuality. Yet he has also been recorded telling a gay man, in a question-and-answer session, that I do hope that in 10 years time youll be able to kiss your partner or, you know, soon, to be your husband [at the sign of peace during Mass]. Why not?

You could interpret this as intellectual dishonesty or as evidence that Fr Martin is torn between his true convictions and fidelity to the Society of Jesus. Either way, it suggests that his ministry to gay people has over-reached itself. His talents should be employed elsewhere which is not a euphemism for silencing him (an impossible task in any case).

The truth is that James Martin is, like many of us, a victim of the culture wars. The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything can be read with profit by any Catholic or non-believers who are trying to live a good life but dont know how to start. It is a book that has led people to Christ the authors clear intention and will continue to do so. But the Fr Martin who writes in America, and who has taken to siding automatically with the progressive side in any argument, is deliberately cutting himself off from Catholics who honestly disagree with his political opinions. Worse, he is provoking some of them to react fiercely against him and the people on whose behalf he claims to speak.

That is the nature of Americas culture wars. It is not the nature of Ignatian spirituality. If the engaging Fr Martin really cannot see that, then perhaps he should be learning, rather than teaching, fearless methods of self-examination.

Damian Thompson is editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald and associate editor of The Spectator

This article first appeared in the May 11 2018 issue of the Catholic Herald. To read the magazine in full, from anywhere in the world, go here

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Caught in the culture wars | CatholicHerald.co.uk

Government health care. Racial equality. Income disparity.

Theyre familiar battles in 2017. But not so familiar seven decades ago.

Yet many seeds of todays culture wars were sown in an unlikely place and time: a Finnish farming community in rural Minnesota at the height of World War II.

Though the global conflict still raged, it was becoming clear by 1944 that the United States and its allies would win. But what kind of world would we live in when the cataclysm ended?

The question was on many minds, including that of Theodore Brameld, an energetic, idealistic many would say left-wing education professor at the University of Minnesota.

Forty miles west of Duluth, in the town of Floodwood (pop. 570), Brameld conducted an experiment that one academic called the first example of educational futurism.

Brameld challenged the entire junior and senior classes at Floodwood High School 51 students in all to create a blueprint for the future, to envision the postwar world theyd lead.

For four months in the spring of 1944, for two hours a day, they studied an intensive curriculum that pushed them to draw conclusions about government, society and how America could make its way in the new world.

These rural Minnesota kids, many of them from immigrant homes, came out in favor of radical ideas like national health care and supported a national public works program, public ownership of natural resources, eliminating the poll tax and lowering the voting age.

Brameld published the conclusions of the Floodwood project in a book, Design for America a thin, rather dry academic summary. After its publication years before the red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy burst on the scene Bramelds book would become the center of a controversy stirred by the National Council for American Education, a right-wing lobbying organization.

Calling the project an attempt to indoctrin[ate] high school students with collectivist and anti-American ideology, the council launched a national campaign against the book, its author and the students.

One of those students was my mother.

The Finns were on board

Brameld chose fertile ground for his experiment. Floodwood was largely settled by Finns, who were widely known for their liberal views.

Many were poor farmers who had formed cooperative organizations to market their produce. Mayor Sanfrid Ruohoniemi my grandfather was calling for government ownership of the towns utilities. And the weekly Floodwood Forum editorialized strongly in favor of international cooperation in the postwar world.

Brameld was using Floodwood to show that issues and social ideology could be dealt with through a level of discourse that would allow students to explore and decide for themselves, said Craig Kridel, an emeritus professor of education at the University of South Carolina who has studied Bramelds work.

Brameld was a rising star in the academic world, and the Floodwood project would give him an important calling card. He didnt rig the results of his experiment, Kridel said, but he definitely picked a favorable laboratory.

He knew that there was a very strong Finnish socialist tradition in Floodwood, Kridel said. He felt it was a community that would resonate with the ideas.

Brameld also pioneered a philosophy of education he called reconstructionism the idea that schools could lead the way in reconstructing society with reasoned self-examination.

Brameld believed that was the point of schools to be a meeting ground to explore ideas in an open way, Kridel said.

My mother, Ann Ruohoniemi, grew up in a Finnish immigrant household and didnt speak English until she went to school. She was a junior at the time of Bramelds experiment; her name appears in the books acknowledgments, along with the other 50 students who took part names like Matalamaki, Perkkio and Karkiainen.

Yet I never heard her mention Design for America or her part in it. She died young, at 46, when I was about the same age she was during Bramelds experiment. I only happened to learn about the Floodwood project when I found articles about it in some old clipping files the Star Tribune was disposing of after digitizing its news archive.

Collectivist, anti-American

The letter to the editor of the Minneapolis Star got straight to the point:

I wonder how many of us know that our state university, supported by taxes, is engaged in teaching socialism and communism to our youth?

That note from a Minneapolis reader kicked off a commotion that kept university officials scrambling to defend themselves for years afterward, generating what U of M President J.L. Morrill called nasty and damaging publicity.

The National Council for American Education had discovered Design for America. In 1948 four years after the Floodwood project and three years after publication of Bramelds book the council sent a two-page flier denouncing the project to its national mailing list.

Soon, the university was getting letters from powerful figures across the country corporate executives, legislators and politicians, including former Minnesota Gov. Harold Stassen, who was then president of the University of Pennsylvania.

They asked how the university had gotten itself involved with teaching American youth that Communism and Socialism offer a way of life superior to our American system, as the flier put it.

As the controversy roiled, Morrill strongly supported the universitys right to academic inquiry.

The fact is that if we had the kind of university in which only our views, yours and mine, were held or expressed, it would be no good really as a university at all, Morrill wrote to Richard Griggs, a member of the universitys Board of Regents.

But Morrill also was careful to distance himself from Brameld, who by then had left the U for New York University.

Brameld himself wrote a fiery response in the Minneapolis Star, denouncing the smear-sheet published by a group of notorious native fascists of the kind who were driven into their holes during the war.

The debate continues

In 1976, Kridel, then a young teaching associate, sent a survey to the Floodwood students who had taken part in Design for America. Nineteen of the 51 responded. (My mother wasnt among them.) Their responses were mixed.

The project gave me a more complete understanding of being involved, one student wrote.

I think the project stunk and was a complete waste of time and education, said another.

Taught us how to judge for ourselves by studying facts as we saw them, rather than being told! wrote a third.

Addressing perhaps the crucial question in the Floodwood controversy, Kridel asked the former students if they felt they had been indoctrinated by the project. Three said yes and two didnt respond; 14 said no.

Some 70 years after the students of Floodwood created their blueprint for the future, debates over what America should look like still rage. And topics like government health care, racial equality and income disparity are just as polarizing.

The Floodwood project itself lives on only in dusty files at the U of M archives and in a copy of Design for America at the Minneapolis public library.

It hasnt been checked out since 1962.

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Today's culture wars foretold in tiny Floodwood, Minn., 70 ...

Increasingly, corporations are finding themselves called upon to becomewillingly or unwillinglyparticipants in a range of social and political controversies. While retail businesses long have been accustomed to consumer-driven activism such as boycotts and publicity campaigns, the current movement is significantly different. Today, institutional investors and other stakeholders are asking companies to take public stances on a wide array of topics, some of which may be wholly unrelated to the targeted companys corporate purpose. Investment funds themselves are feeling this pressure, as they are being asked by their own investors to become activists on social issues, and the rapid pace of recent external eventscombined with the impact of social mediacan demand hasty statements or actions.

In response, corporations need to proceed thoughtfully, deliberately, and with caution. While corporate policymaking and public statements on social and political issues are essentially management decisions, the board should be kept informed and has the right to weigh in, if it so chooses. At the same time, the need to respond quickly often necessitates that management take the lead. Ideally, the board should be comfortable with managements message, plan of action, and evaluation of the attendant risks.

In his 2018 letter to CEOs, BlackRock founder Larry Fink wrote that [t]o prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society. This most-recent Fink letter has been cited by some as a call for companies to become social activists. Yet one can take the view that companies have societal responsibilities and, at the same time, support the view that companies do not fulfill those responsibilities by weighing in on social or political issues outside their corporate purpose. Making a positive contribution to society takes many different forms. Society benefits enormously from a company that pursues its corporate purpose with integrity and generosity, requiring leadership from its management and decency from all employees. The American economy, and a great many other elements of American life, depend on the success of companies that dedicate themselves to doing business honestly and well. Chief executives should take care that they do not create needless controversy by being drawn into social issues of the day and thereby undermining the success of their corporate endeavors. Without sustained profitability, after all, companies are unable to have a meaningful impact of any kind over the longer term.

Over the past decade and a half, environmental, social, and governance issues have come to the forefront of business discourse. Shareholder proposals under SEC Rule 14a-8 in 2017 were concentrated on social and environmental issues. On the environmental front, support has surged in recent years for proposals requesting that companies disclose how they are assessing climate risk, and three such proposals received majority support in 2017 for the first time. BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street have advocated for increased leadership and oversight regarding ESG risk and the integration of sustainability-related risk into corporate strategy. For many companies, environmental risk should be overseen by the board of directors as part of risk oversight generally, although for some, environmental risks may be overseen by a dedicated board committee that then reports to the board. Boards may benefit from director education on environmental and social risks as well as regular briefings on company-specific issues and how they are managed by the company. Boards should also be aware of any particular areas of significant shareholder focus and should be comfortable with the companys external reporting on ESG issues.

Gender diversity on boards and in executive leadership is a key social issue for investors. The related issues of gender pay equity and sexual harassment have also increased in prominence, and the business community has begun to view gender diversity and pay equity as essential to a healthy and successful enterprise. Happily, this is an area where the business case and the social benefit are aligned. Data show that diverse boards lead to better performance, risk management, and returns. Going forward, boards with a lack of diversity will find themselves under increasing pressure to take meaningful steps toward inclusion. Investors do and will continue to urge companies to remedy gender pay inequities and maintain a workplace free from sexual harassment so as to attract and retain top female talent.

Sustainability-related environmental concerns and enterprise-enhancing diversity initiatives are examples of the easier cases. It makes good business sense to take steps that are both societally beneficial and strategically sound. The difficulty comes when companies are called to address issues that relate to a small element of their business, or issues that are tangential or even unrelated to the corporate purpose, especially those that are high-profile and controversial. In recent months, companies have found themselves under pressure to take public stances on topics as varied as sugar consumption, the manufacture and sale of guns, immigration policy, and device use by children.

Social media has also irrevocably altered the dynamic for public companies. While very few investors will use social media platforms to communicate with the companies that they have invested in, they generally take notice of social media trends. Moreover, it is very difficult to tell with social media platforms whether the people who are targeting the companys action or inaction on any particular issue have any relationship with the company (i.e., customer, supplier, employee) or whether they are simply individuals motivated by social and political factors. In todays world, companies must actively monitor social media platforms while taking care not to react too quicklyor too slowly to any particular trend or perspective. This is further complicated by the fact that two individuals with different beliefs can receive vastly different social media news feeds, leading them to opposite conclusions. One person may view the company as being criticized for its stance while another individual will be more likely to see positive stories and comments due to the way the different social media platforms function. In addition, social media has significantly truncated the time periods under which companies must respond before any particular social media story goes viral. This is part of the reason why management has the primary responsibility to respond to these issues while keeping the board apprised of any concerns and reactions: Management can respond within minutes or hours while it might take a board hours or days to be in a position to respond.

Delta Airlines attempt to stay neutral in the gun control debate shows the futility of any bid to please all sides, and even the impossibility of avoiding controversy altogether in certain situations. According to the Washington Post, Deltaunder public pressureended a discount available to members of the National Rifle Association to travel to their annual convention, a type of discount routinely offered to many other groups. Delta announced that this step was an attempt to refrain from entering this debate and focus on its business. Nonetheless, Delta immediately encountered fierce political pushback from the State of Georgia, where the airline is based, as well as from the NRA and its supporters, which resulted in Delta losing a $38 million tax break. Similarly, when Kevin Plank, chief executive of Under Armour, stepped down from President Trumps American Manufacturing Council in the wake of racially-driven tensions in Charlottesville, Va., he cast it as a neutral move, stating that Under Armor engages in innovation and sports, not politics. His resignation was taken as a political statement nonetheless, as were prior favorable comments he had made about President Trumps pro-business policies, and shortly thereafter, Under Armour took out a full-page ad in its hometown newspaper to clarify the companys stances on a range of hot-button issues including immigration, equal rights, and diversity.

The Delta and Under Armour examples show how quickly a seemingly minor political statement can explode into public controversy. If a chief executive makes a comment about a political issue, or if a company changes or establishes a policy that seems to have political implications, almost overnight there can be enormous public pressure for the CEO or the company to express a viewpoint on a wide range of issues. Under Armours business has nothing to do with the travel ban, yet that issue was headline news at the time and thus had to be included in the companys clarification. Businesses hardly wish to alienate a sizable portion of their customer base, yet in a country intensely divided along political lines, outrage becomes inevitable the moment a company enters the culture wars on one side or the other. The slippery slope from one controversial issue to all the controversial issues is very steep. Furthermore, attempts to remain neutral in a particular debate will often be viewed as picking a side. While it is managements job to navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of red and blue America, the board may find it necessary to intervene if it becomes convinced that management decisions in this regard are likely to be harmful to the company and its shareholders.

Milton Friedman wrote that social responsibility is one way for a corporation to generate goodwill as a byproduct of expenditures that are entirely justified in its own self-interest. Yet in the current climate, that goodwill lasts only until the next issue comes along. Public statements on social issues are quickly forgotten, and the stream of controversial topics is never-ending. Friedman cautioned decades ago that the doctrine of social responsibility taken seriously would extend the scope of the political mechanism to every human activity.

It is as fraught in the current climate to cite Milton Friedman as it is Larry Fink. Yet there is no need to choose between the two. Larry Fink is correct that companies serve a social purpose and should make a positive contribution to society. And Milton Friedmans limitation is worth heeding. A company that seeks to serve every social purpose would be hard-pressed to deliver financial success at the same time. Profitability, achieved through ethical business practices, is the engine that drives corporate impact and, with responsible leadership, produces meaningful benefits to society that last longer than the next news cycle.

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Corporations and the Culture Wars - corpgov.law.harvard.edu

The German term Kulturkampf(helpinfo) (pronounced [kltukampf], literally "culture struggle") refers to power struggles between emerging constitutional and democratic nation states and the Roman Catholic Church over the place and role of religion in modern polity, usually in connection with secularization campaigns. In the ancien rgime, states were confessional, religion governed private and public life, and the Catholic Church had been closely associated with reactionary governments and ideological conservatism.[1] Thus, "the struggle against the ancien rgime, its remnants, or its restoration was necessarily a struggle against the church" and such conflicts were a central theme of Western European history from the mid-19th century until 1914. [2] [3] [4]

In the historical sense, Kulturkampf refers to such power struggles and legislative campaigns in several countries, e g. in Switzerland (see de:Kulturkampf in der Schweiz), which took a leading role in the 1840s (see: Sonderbund War), in Germany beginning around 1860 and especially their culmination between 1871 and 1876, in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain,[5] Spain,[6] Italy, Austria-Hungary (see de:Maigesetze (sterreich-Ungarn)), Hungary (1890-1895)[7] as well as in the United States and Latin America, e. g. Mexico [8] or Brazil.[9]

With this meaning the term Kulturkampf entered many languages, e.g.: French: le Kulturkampf, Spanish: el Kulturkampf, Italian: il Kulturkampf.[10] It first appeared c. 1840 in an anonymous review of a publication by Swiss-German liberal Ludwig Snell on "The Importance of the Struggle of Liberal Catholic Switzerland with the Roman Curia". But it only gained wider currency after liberal member of the Prussian parliament, Rudolph Virchow, used it in 1873.[11][12]

In contemporary socio-political discussion, the term Kulturkampf (see also culture war) is often used to describe any conflict between secular and religious authorities or deeply opposing values, beliefs between sizable factions within a nation, community, or other group.[13]

Under the influence of ascending new philosophies and ideologies such as the enlightenment, realism, positivism, materialism, nationalism, secularism and liberalism, the role of religion in society and the relationship between society and church underwent profound changes in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many countries endeavoured to strip the church of worldly powers, reduce the duties of the church to spiritual affairs by secularising the public sphere and by separation of church and state and to assert the supremacy of the state, especially in education.[14] Risn Healy argues that across Europe, the Kulturkampf operated mainly on state-level and was found "especially in strongholds of liberalism, anti-clericalism, and anti-Catholicism."[15]

The Catholic Church resisted this development which it portrayed as an attack on religion and sought to maintain and even strengthen its strong role in state and society.[16] With the growing influence of enlightenment and after having lost much of its wealth, power and influence in the mediatisation and secularization of the early 19th century the church had been in a state of decline.[17][18] The papacy at this time was at a weak point in its history, having just lost all its territories to Italy, with the pope a "prisoner" in the Vatican.[19] The church strove to revert its waning influence and to keep sway in such matters as e. g. marriage, family and education and initiated a Catholic revival by founding associations, papers, schools, social establishments or new orders and encouraging religious practices such as pilgrimages, mass assemblies, the devotion of Virgin Mary or the sacred heart of Jesus and the veneration of relics;[20] the pope himself became an object of devotion.[21] Apart from the extraordinary proliferation of religious orders, the 19th. century also witnessed the rise of countless Catholic associations and organisations, especially in Germany and in France.[22] Catholic propaganda including the interpretation of daily events was spread through local and national Catholic newspapers prominent in all western European nations as well as through organized missions and groups dedicated to pious literature.[23]

In the 19th. century, the Catholic Church promulgated a series of contentious dogmas and encyclicals: In

Under the leadership of his successor, Pope Pius IX, in

With its "Syllabus of Errors" of 1864, the Catholic Church launched an assault on the new ideologies condemning 80 philosophical and political statements, mainly the foundations of the modern nation state, as false. It outright rejected such concepts as freedom of religion, free thought, separation of church and state, civil marriage, sovereignty of the people, democracy, liberalism and socialism, reason as the sole base of human action and in general condemned the idea of conciliation with progress. The announcements included an index of forbidden books.[24]

A profound change was the gradual reorganization of the Catholic Church and its expansive use of the media. The popes worked to increase their control of the Church. Heavily criticized by European governments, it was centralized and streamlined with a strict hierarchy, the bishops sought direction from the Vatican and the needs and views of the international church were given priority over the local ones. Opponents of the new hierarchical church organization pejoratively called it ultramontanism.[25] [26]

In view of the churchs opposition to enlightenment, liberal reforms and the revolutions of the 18th/19th centuries, these dogmas and the churchs expressed insistence on papal primacy angered the liberal-minded all across Europe, even among some Catholics, adding fuel to the heated debates.[27][28]

The dogmas represented a threat to the secularized state as they reaffirmend that the fundamental allegiance of Catholics was not to their nation-state, but to the Gospel and the Church and that the popes teaching was absolutely authoritative and binding on all the faithful. Secular politicians even wondered whether "Catholicism and allegiance to the modern liberal state were not mutually exclusive". British Prime Minister Gladstone wrote in 1874 that the teaching on papal infallibility compromised the allegiance of faithful English Catholics. For European liberalism, the dogmas were a declaration of war against the modern state, science and spiritual freedom.[29][30]

The popes handling of dissent of the dogmas, e. g. by excommunication of critics or demanding their removal from schools and universities, was considered as "epitome of papal authoritarianism".[31] In direct response to the Vaticans announcements, Austria passed the so-called May-Laws for Cisleithania in 1868, restricting the Concordat of 1855, and then cancelled the concordat altogether in 1870. Saxony and Bavaria withheld approval to publish the papal infallibility; Hesse and Baden even denied any legal validity. France refused to publish the doctrines altogether; Spain forbade publication of Syllabus of Errors in 1864.[32]

By the mid-nineteenth century, liberal policies had also come to dominate Germany and the separation of church and state became a prominent issue.[33][34]

The Kulturkampf in Germany is usually framed by the years 1871 and 1878 with the Catholic Church officially announcing its end in 1880 but the struggle in Germany had been an ongoing matter without definite beginning and the years 1871 to 1878 only mark its culmination in Prussia and Germany. In the wake of other European countries, most German states had taken first steps of secularisation well before unification. Predominantly Catholic Baden was at the forefront curbing the power of the Catholic Church (1852 1854 Baden Church Dispute) and (1864 1876 Kulturkampf Baden, see de:Badischer Kulturkampf).[35][36] Other examples are Prussia (1830s, 1850, 1859 and 1969), Wrttemberg (1859/1862), Bavaria (1867, see de:Bayerischer Kulturkampf), Hesse-Nassau or Hesse-Darmstadt.

In the 1837 Klner Wirren (Cologne Confusion; article in German) of legal and policy issues regarding the children of mixed Protestant-Catholic marriages,[37] Prussia's final settlement was considered a defeat for the state as it had given in to demands of the Catholic Church.[38] In 1850, Prussia again had a dispute with the church about civil marriage and primary schools[39] and in 1852, it issued decrees against the Jesuits. As in many European countries, Jesuits were being banned or heavily restricted in many of the German states e. g. in Saxony (1831) and even in Catholic ones such as Bavaria (1851), Baden (1860) or Wrttemberg (1862).[40]

Not to be left out, the German areas to the west of the Rhine had already gone through a process of separation of church and state in line with a radical secularization after annexation by revolutionary and Napoleonic France in 1794. After their return to Germany in 1814, many if not most of the changes were kept in place.[41]

In the Vormrz-years, Catholic publications usually portrayed revolutions as negative and dangerous to the existing order as well as to the interests of the Catholic Church. Most of them considered a viable Catholicism to be necessary for the very health of society and state and to be the only true and effective protection against the scourge of revolution.[42] The unsuccessful German revolutions of 184849, which the Catholic Church had opposed, produced no democratic reforms and attempts to radically disentangle state-church relationships failed. In the revolutionary parliament, many prominent representatives of political Catholicism took the side of the extreme right-wingers. In the years following the revolution, Catholicism became increasingly politicised due to the massive anti-modernist and anti-liberal policies of the Vatican.

In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and Franco-Prussian War of 1870 the Catholic Church sided against Prussia and it was an outspoken opponent of German unification under Prussia (as well as of Italys unification).

The Catholic dogmas and doctrines announced in 1854, 1864 and 1870 were perceived in Germany as direct attacks on the modern nation state.[43] Thus, Bismarck, the Liberals and the Conservatives representing orthodox Protestants found the Centre Partys support of the pope highly provocative. Many Catholics shared these sentiments, especially against the popes declared infallibility and the majority of Catholic German bishops deemed the definition of the dogma as "'unpropitious' in light of the situation in Germany". According to the Bavarian head of government, Hohenlohe, the dogma of infallibility compromised the Catholic's loyalty to the state.[44] While most Catholics eventually reconciled themselves to the doctrine, some founded the small breakaway Old Catholic Church.

The liberal majorities in the Imperial Diet and the Prussian parliament as well as liberals in general regarded the Church as backward, a hotbed for reactionaries, enemies of progress and cast monastic life as the epitome of a backward Catholic medievalism. They were alarmed by the dramatic rise in the numbers of monasteries, convents and clerical religious groups in an era of widespread religious revival. The Diocese of Cologne, for example, saw a tenfold increase of monks and nuns between 1850 and 1872. Prussian authorities were particularly suspicious of the spread of monastic life among the Polish and French minorities.[45] The Church, in turn, saw the National-Liberals its worst enemy, accusing them of spearheading the war against Christianity and the Catholic Church.[46]

At unification in 1871, the new German Empire included 25.5 million Protestants (62% of the population) and 15 million Catholics (36.5% of the population). Although a minority in the empire, Catholics were the majority in the states of Bavaria, Baden, and Alsace-Lorraine as well as in the four Prussian Provinces of West Prussia, Posen, Rhineland, Westphalia and in the Prussian region of Upper Silesia. Since the Thirty Years' War the population was generally segregated along religious lines and rural areas or towns were overwhelmingly if not entirely of the same religion. Education was also separate and usually in the hands of the churches. There was little mutual tolerance, interaction or intermarriage. Protestants in general were deeply distrustful of the Catholic Church.

Unification had been achieved through many obstacles with strong opponents. These were the European powers of France and Austria, both Catholic nations, and the Catholic Church itself, the three of which Bismarck perceived as "Coalition of Catholic Revenge". For Bismarck, the empire was very fragile and its consolidation was an important issue. Biographer Otto Pflanze emphasizes, "Bismarck's belief in the existence of a widespread Catholic conspiracy that posed a threat to both his German and European policies."[47]

In a Protestant empire, the Catholic Church was to lose its good standing which it had enjoyed for centuries in the Catholic-dominated Holy Roman Empire and which it would have continued to enjoy in a German empire united under Austrian auspices. Thus, in 1870, on the eve of unification, the Center Party was explicitly founded to defend the position of the church in the new empire.

Bismarck was highly concerned that many major members and supporters of this new party were not in sympathy with the new empire: the House of Hanover, the ethnic minority of the Poles, the southern German states. In 1871, the predominantly Catholic states of Southern Germany had only reluctantly joined the empire, increasing the overall share of the Catholic population to 36.5%. Among this Catholic share was Germanys largest ethnic minority, well over 2 million Poles in the east of Prussia, who under Prussia and Germany suffered discrimination and oppression[48].. Bismarck regarded the new Centre Party not only as an illegal mixup of politics and religion and the churchs "long arm" but also as a unifying force for Catholic Germans and Poles and thus a threat to the consolidation of the empire. He feared that the Centre Party would frustrate his broader political agendas and he accused the Catholic priests of fostering Polish nationalism as had been done openly in the provinces of Posen and Upper Silesia.[27][49][50] [51] [52]

The Liberals regarded the Catholic Church as a powerful force of reaction and anti-modernity, especially after the proclamation of papal infallibility in 1870 and the tightening control of the Vatican over the local bishops.[53] The renewed vitality of Catholicism in Germany with its mass gatherings also attracted Protestants - even the heir to the Prussian throne, with the king's approval, attended one.[54] Antiliberalism, anticlericalism and anti-Catholicism became powerful intellectual forces of the time and the antagonism between Liberals and Protestants on one side and the Catholic Church on the other was fought out through mud-slinging in the press. A wave of anti-Catholic, anticlerical and antimonastic pamphleteering in the liberal press[54] was answered by antiliberal preaching and propaganda in Catholic newspapers and vice versa.

For these reasons, the government sought to wean the Catholic masses away from the hierarchy and the Centre Party and the liberals demands to curb the power of the churches meshed well with Bismarcks main political objective to crush the Centre Party. According to historian Anthony J. Steinhoff, "Bismarcks plan to disarm political Catholicism delighted liberal politicians, who provided the parliamentary backing for the crusade. Yet, the phrase the left-liberal Rudolf Virchow coined for this struggle, the Kulturkampf, suggests that the liberals wanted to do more than prevent Catholicism from becoming a political force. They wanted victory over Catholicism itself, the long-delayed conclusion of the Reformation".[55]

At least since 1847 and in line with the Liberals, Bismarck had also been of the professed opinion, that state and church should be completely separated and "the sphere of the state had to be made secure against the incursions by the church",[56] although his ideas were not as far reaching as in the United States or in Great Britain. He had in mind the traditional position of the Protestant church in Prussia and provoked considerable resistance from conservative Protestants. This became clear in a heated debate with Prussian culture minister von Mhler in 1871 when Bismarck said: "Since you stopped my plans in the Protestant church, I have to go via Rome".[57] In August 1871 at Bad Ems, Bismarck revealed his intention to fight against the Centre Party, to separate state and church, to transfer school inspection to laymen, to abolish religious instruction from schools and to transfer religious affairs to the minister of justice.[58]

On 22 January 1872, liberal Adalbert Falk replaced conservative Heinrich von Mhler as Prussian minister for religion, education and health. In Bismarck's mind, Falk was "to re-establish the rights of the state in relation to the church". Yet, unlike Bismarck, whose main motivation for the Kulturkampf was the political power struggle with the Centre Party, Falk, a lawyer, was a strong proponent of state authority having in mind the legal aspects of state-church relationships. Falk became the driving force behind the Kulturkampf laws. Although Bismarck publicly supported Falk, he doubted the success of his laws and was unhappy with his lack of political tact and sensitivity. The differences in their attitudes concerning the Kulturkampf eventually put the two politicians at odds with each other.[59][60]

With this background and the determination of church and state, the Kulturkampf in Germany acquired an additional edge as it gathered in intensitiy and bitterness.

From 1871 to 1876, the Prussian state parliament and the federal legislature (Reichstag), both with liberal majorities, enacted 22 laws in the context of the Kulturkampf. They were mainly directed against clerics: bishops, priests and religious orders (anti-clerical) and enforced the supremacy of the state over the church.[61][62] While several laws were specific to the Catholic Church (Jesuits, congregations etc.) the general laws affected both Catholic and Protestant churches. In an attempt to overcome increasing resistance by the Catholic Church and its defiance of the laws, new regulations increasingly went beyond state matters referring to purely internal affairs of the church. Even many liberals saw them as encroachment on civil liberties, compromising their own credo.[63]

Constitutionally, education and regulation of religious affairs were vested in the federal states and the leading actor of the Kulturkampf was Prussia, Germanys largest state. But some of the laws were also passed by the Reichstag and applied to all of Germany. In general, the laws did not affect the press and associations including Catholic ones.[62]

The major Kulturkampf laws were:

The last two laws passed in 1876 were of no practical importance.

The political situation in Europe was very volatile. Initially perceived as a possible enemy hostile to German unification under Prussian leadership, Austria and Germany very quickly became friends and formed the Dual Alliance in 1879. The possibility of a war with France or Russia also became more remote. Therefore, social and economical problems moved to the fore and Bismarcks attention gradually turned to other topics he deemed more threatening such as the increasing popularity of the socialists or more important such as questions of import duties. In these matters he could either not rely on the support of the liberals to pursue his goals or they were not sufficient to form a majority. Bismarck had not been comfortable with the increasing ferocity of the Kulturkampf. Concerning the rise of the Centre Party, the laws had proven to be greatly ineffective and even counter productive. He soon realized that they were of no help battling the Centre Party and as far as separation of state and church was concerend, he had achieved more than he wanted.[77]

In order to garner support for his Anti-Socialist Laws and protective trade tariffs, Bismarck turned his back on the liberals in search of new alliances. The death of Pius IX on 7 February 1878 opened the door for a settlement with the Catholic Church. The new pope, Leo XIII was pragmatic and conciliatory and expressed his wish for peace in a letter to the Prussian king on the very day of his election followed by a second letter in a similar vein that same year.

Bismarck and the Pope entered into direct negotiations without participation of the Church or the Reichstag, yet initially without much success. It came to pass that Falk, vehemently resented by Catholics, resigned on 14 July 1879, which could be read as a peace offering to the Vatican. A decisive boost only came in February 1880, when the Vatican unexpectedly agreed to the civic registry of clerics. As the Kulturkampf slowly wound down the talks lead to a number of so-called mitigation and peace laws which were passed until 1887.[75]

On 29 September 1885, as another sign of peace, Bismarck proposed the Pope as arbiter in a dispute with Spain about the Caroline Islands and accepted his verdict in favour of Spain. In gratitude but to the great horror of Catholics, the Pope awarded Bismarck the Supreme Order of Christ, the highest order of chivalry to be granted by the Holy See. Bismarck was the only Protestant ever to receive this award.

After further negotiations between Prussia and the Vatican the Prussian parliament passed 2 additional laws amending some of the Kulturkampf laws.

On 23 May 1887, the Pope declared The struggle which damaged the church and was of no good to the state is now over. The Mitigation and Peace Laws restored the inner autonomy of the Catholic church while leaving key regulations and the laws concerning separation of church and state in place (civic marriage, civic registry, religious disaffiliation, government school supervision, civic registry of clerics, ban of Jesuits, pulpit law, state supervision of church assets, constitutional amendments and the Catholic section in the Ministry of Culture was not reintroduced).

The respective opposing parties in the Reichstag harshly criticized the concessions made by the Vatican and the Prussian government. Windthorst and the Centre Party were dismayed at being sidelined and not being consulted about the concessions the pope made, e. g. about the ban on Jesuits or the civil registry of clerics. None of the partys major demands were met. Instead, the pope even sided with Bismarck on non-religious issues and pressured the Centre Party to support Bismarck or at least abstain, e. g. in the matter of the hotly debated Septennat 1887 (7-year military budget). Many Liberals, especially Falk, objected to the concessions Bismarck made to the Church.

The growth of the Centre Party has been considered a major setback for Bismarck although never publicly conceded. Yet, in spite of strong Catholic representation in the Reichstag, the political power and influence of the Church in the public sphere and its political power was greatly reduced.

Although Germany and the Vatican were officially at peace after 1878, religious conflicts and tensions continued. At the turn of the century, Pope Pius X announced the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, mounting new attacks on historical criticism of biblical texts and any accommodation of Catholicism to modern philosophy, sociology or literature. As of 1910, clerics had to take an oath against all forms of modernism, a requirement later extended to teachers of Catholic religion at schools and professors of Catholic theology resulting in intense political and public debates and new conflicts with the state.[78]

The abolishment of the Catholic section of the Prussian Ministry of ecclesiastical and educational affairs, deprived Catholics of their voice at the highest level. The system of strict government supervision of schools was applied only in Catholic areas; the Protestant schools were left alone. The school politics also alienated Protestant conservatives and churchmen.[79]

The British ambassador Odo Russell reported to London in October 1872 how Bismarck's plans were backfiring by strengthening the ultramontane (pro-papal) position inside German Catholicism:

Nearly all German bishops, clergy and laymen rejected the legality of the new laws, and were defiant facing the increasingly heavy penalties, trials and imprisonments. As of 1878, only three of eight Prussian dioceses still had bishops, some 1,125 of 4,600 parishes were vacant, and nearly 1,800 priests ended up in jail or in exile, nearly half the monks and nuns had left Prussia, a third of the monasteries and convents were closed. Between 1872 and 1878, numerous Catholic newspapers were confiscated, Catholic associations and assemblies were dissolved, and Catholic civil servants were dismissed merely on the pretence of having Ultramontane sympathies. Thousands of laypeople were imprisoned for assisting priests to evade the punitive new laws.[81][82]

The general ideological enthusiasm among the liberals for the Kulturkampf[83] was in contrast to Bismarck's pragmatic attitude towards the measures[84] and growing disquiet from the Conservatives.[85] Apart from the outspoken criticism of the Kulturkampf Laws by the Catholic Church and the Centre Party, there were also a number of Liberals and Protestants who voiced concern at least at the so-called "Kampfgesetze" (battle laws). "Unease concerning the effects of his programme continued to spread among all but the most bigoted priest-haters and the most doctrinaire liberals".[86] Such noted critics outside the Catholic camp were Friedrich Heinrich Geffcken, Emil Albert Friedberg or Julius von Kirchmann. Although they were proponents of state superiority, they regarded some of the laws as either ineffective or as interference in internal church affairs and not consistent with liberal values. Geffcken wrote that "with the intention to emancipate the laity from the hierarchy, the main body of the Catholics was brought in phalanx into the hands of leaders from which it was to be wrested. But the state cannot fight at length against a third of the population, it has no means to break such a passive resistance supported and organized by religious fanaticism. If a statesman desists from the correctness of a measure it only matters that he has the power to enforce it." Even Bismarck who initially saw a variety of tactical political advantages in these measures, e. g. for his suppressive policies against the Polish population took pains to distance himself from the rigors of their enforcement."[87]

The Kulturkampf law considered the harshest and with no equivalent in Europe was the Expatriation Law. Passed by a liberal majority in parliament, it stipulated banishment as a punishment that all civilized peoples considered the harshest beyond the death penalty.[88]

As to the Centre Party, these measures did not have the effect that Bismarck had in mind. In the state elections of November 1873, it grew from 50 to 90 seats and in the Reichstag elections from 63 to 91. The number of Catholic periodicals also increased; in 1873 there were about 120.[74]

The Kulturkampf gave secularists and socialists an opportunity to attack all religions, an outcome that distressed the Protestant leaders and especially Bismarck himself, who was a devout pietistic Protestant.[89]

In the face of systematic defiance, the Bismarck government increased the penalties and its attacks, and were challenged in 1875 when a papal encyclical declared that the entire ecclesiastical legislation of Prussia was invalid, and threatened to excommunicate any Catholic who obeyed. There was no violence, but the Catholics mobilized their support, set up numerous civic organizations, raised money to pay fines and rallied behind their church and the Center Party.

To Bismarck's surprise, the Conservative Party especially the Junkers from his own landowning class in East Prussia, sided with the Catholics. They were Protestants and did not like the Pope, but they had much in common with the Center Party. The Conservatives controlled their local schools and did not want bureaucrats from Berlin to take them over. They were hostile to the liberals, being fearful of free trade that would put them in competition with the United States and other grain exporters, and disliking their secular views. In the Prussian legislature they sided with the Center Party on the school issue. Bismarck was livid, and he resigned the premiership of Prussia (while remaining Chancellor of the German Empire), telling an ally, "in domestic affairs I have lost the ground that is for me acceptable through the unpatriotic treason of the Conservative Party in the Catholic question." Indeed, many of Bismarck's conservative friends were in opposition. So too was Kaiser William I, who was King of Prussia; he was strongly opposed to the civil marriage component of the Kulturkampf.[90]

The Kulturkampf made Catholics more resolute; they responded not with violence but with votes, and as the newly formed Center Party became a major force in the Imperial Parliament, it gained support from non-Catholic minorities who felt threatened by Bismarck's centralization of power.[89] In the long run, the most significant result was the mobilization of the Catholic voters through the Center Party, and their insistence on protecting their church. Historian Margaret Anderson says:

After the Center party had doubled its popular vote in the elections of 1874, it became the second largest party in the national parliament, and remained a powerful force for the next 60 years. It became difficult for Bismarck to form a government without their support.[89][92] From the decades-long experience in battling against the Kulturkampf, the Catholics of Germany, says Professor Margaret Anderson, learned democracy. She states that the clergy:

The Poles had already suffered from discrimination and numerous oppressive measures in Germany long before unification. These measures were intensified after the German Empire was formed[94] and Bismarck was known to be particularly hostile towards the Poles.[95][96] Christopher Clark argues that Prussian policy changed radically in the 1870s in the face of highly visible Polish support for France in the Franco-Prussian war.[97] Polish demonstrations made clear the Polish nationalist feeling, and calls were also made for Polish recruits to desert from the Prussian Army though these went unheeded. Bismarck was outraged, telling the Prussian cabinet in 1871: From the Russian border to the Adriatic Sea we are confronted with the combined propaganda of Slavs, ultramontanes, and reactionaries, and it is necessary openly to defend our national interests and our language against such hostile actions.[98] Therefore, in the Province of Posen the Kulturkampf took on a much more nationalistic character than in other parts of Germany.[99] Not an adamant supporter of the Liberals general Kulturkampf goals, Bismarck did recognize the potential in some of them for subduing Polish national aspirations and readily made use of it. While the Liberals main objective was separation of state and church as essential for a democratic and liberal society, Bismarck saw its use in separating the Polish population from the only supporter and guardian of its national identity. Prussian authorities imprisoned 185 priests and forced hundred of others into exile. Among the imprisoned was the Primate of Poland Archbishop Mieczysaw Ledchowski. A large part of the remaining Catholic priests had to continue their service in hiding from the authorities. Although most of the 185 imprisoned were finally set free by the end of the decade, those who were released emigrated.[citation needed] The official end of the Kulturkampf had little influence on the policies of Germanization which continued in the Polish-inhabited parts of the country.[99]

Around the same time as in Germany, a Kulturkampf was also raging in Switzerland with roots dating back to the 1830 and well beyond to the era of enlightenment and the Helvetic Republic.[100] In fact, it was in the Swiss context that the term "Kulturkampf" first appeared in a publication.[12] The 1830s were years of liberal regeneration and 12 cantons with liberal majorities enacted new constitutions with radical changes in the relationship between state and churches, especially putting education under government control.

These changes mainly affected the Catholic Church and its clerics resisted the new regulations. On 2 January 1834, at a meeting in Baden, the cantons of Lucerne, Bern, Zug, Solothurn, Basel-Landschaft, St. Gall, Aargau and Thurgau passed the "Resolution of Baden" (see de:Badener Artikel) to assert the demands of the state. A conservative backlash 1839 in Zurich (Zriputsch) and 1841 in Lucerne (in connection with the Aargau monastery dispute), the violent repression of the liberals in Valais by the Ultramontanes and the appointment of Jesuits to secondary schools in Lucerne led to the establishment of Freischar (rebel) forces in various liberal cantons. This in turm prompted the conservative cantons, initially secret, to form the "Sonderbund" (Special Union) in December 1845. In July 1847 the Federal Diet voted to dissolve the Sonderbund, amend the constitution and to expel the Jesuits which led to protests not only by the Vatican but also from the big conservative European powers of France, Russia, pre-revolutionary Prussia and Austria. The liberals had the undisguised support of England. The Sonderbund War broke out on 3. November 1847 and lasted until the surrender of the last conservative canton, Valais, on 29. November. Liberal constitutions were installed in all cantons. With revolutions breaking out in France and Germany threats by these poweres remained empty.

The years from 1830 to the end of the Sonderbundwar are considered the first phase of the Swiss Kulturkampf. A second phase started with various disputes and conflicts in the 1870s.

Walter Munzinger, unhappy with the dogma of papal infallibility, organized the first Swiss convention of Catholics in Solothurn on 18 September 1871 for likeminded Catholics. This convention is considered the beginning of the Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland, a member church of the Union of Utrecht of Old Catholic Churches.

One of the disputes was about the town priest of Geneva, Gaspar Mermillod, who assumed the powers of the bishop for the local Catholics without approval of the government. Despite the protest of the state council Mermillod continued to execute these powers; as a result he was deposed on 20 September 1872. On 16 January, the Roman Curia appointed Mermillod as vicar apostolic for the Canton of Geneva. In response, the Swiss Federal Council expelled him. After pope Pius IX called these proceedings by the Swiss authorities "disgraceful" in an encyclical of 20 November 1873, the Federal Council broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican on 12 December 1873.

After the Council of 1870, bishop Eugne Lachat of the Diocese of Basel proclaimed the dogma of papal infallibility in his diocese even though the respective cantons (Solothurn, Lucerne, Zug, Bern, Aargau, Thurgau and Basel-Landschaft) had expressly forbidden him to do so. Two priests in Lucerne and Starrkirch did not acknowledge the new dogma. Lachat deposed and excommunicated them. Thereupon, the cantons Solothurn, Bern, Aargau, Thurgau and Basel-Landschaft deposed the bishop on 29 January 1873 and when the cathedral chapter refused to appoint an interim bishop, on 21 December 1874 they dissolved the diocese of Basel and liquidated Lachat's assets. Lachat moved his office from Solothurn to Lucerne. 97 clerics in the predominantly Catholic part of the canton Berne (today canton Jura) protested against the deposition of the bishop and the dissolution of the diocese. They proclaimed Lachat to be their rightful bishop at which the Federal Council deposed them. Rioting in several villages of the Jura region was quelled by force and military occupation; the 97 clerics were expelled in January 1874. The federal government rescinded this ordninance in 1875 but supremacy over the church by the canton of Berne was confirmed in a plebiscite.

In 1874, Switzerland enacted the second federal constitution which was accepted in a plebiscite. Except for the following restrictions, for the first time, this constitution allowed complete freedom of religion.

In December 1874, the University of Bern established a faculty for Catholic theology with the aim to train liberal-minded Catholic priests for the Jura region.

The Kulturkampf in Austria has roots dating back to the 18th. century. Emperor Joseph II launched a religious policy later called "Josephinism" advocating the supremacy of the state in religious matters. This resulted in far-reaching state control over the Catholic Church in Austria including e. g. the reorganization of dioceses, regulating the number of masses, the transfer of many schools into government hands, state-controlled seminaries, limiting the number of clerics and dissolving numerous monasteries. Protests of Pope Pius VI and even his visit to Vienna in 1782 were to no avail. In the concordat of 1855, the culmination of Catholic influence in Austria, many of the Catholic Churchs previous rights taken away under Joseph II were restored (marriage, partial control of censorship, elementary and secondary education, full control of clergy and religious fund.

In 1886 and 1869, after sanctioning the December constitution, the new cabinet appointed by emperor Francis Joseph undid parts of the concordat with several liberal reforms enacted in the so-called May Laws. Against strong protests from the Catholic Church, the laws of 25 May 1868 and 14 May 1869 restored civil marriage, passed primary and secondary education into government hands, installed interconfessional schools and regulated interconfessional relations (e. g. mixed marriages, faith of children including option of free choice).[101][102]

In a secret consistory, Pope Pius IX condemned the constitution of 1867 and the May laws as "leges abominabiles". In a pastoral letter on 7 September 1868, bishop Franz-Josef Rudigier called for resistance to these May laws. The letter was confiscated and he had to appear before court on 5 June 1869 which, for the first time, lead to public demonstrations of the Catholic population. On 12 July 1869, the bishop was sentenced to a jail term of two weeks, but pardoned by the emperor.

The May laws provoked a serious conflict between state and church. Austria abrogated the concordat of 1855 in 1870 after the promulgation of papal infallibility and abolished it in altogether in 1874. In May 1874, the Religious Act was officially recognized.[103]

The Kulturkampf in Italy is a very early example of the struggles between states and the Catholic Church; Italian liberals and democrats contributed substantially to the secularist project of modernity and had a strong effect on its own history.

Piedmont had a similar role in the unification of Italy as Prussia in Germany and it had been at the forefront in the struggle against the Catholic Church as far back as the 17th century under Victor Amadeus. The Church rejected an edict of 1694 tolerating the Waldensians. In the ensueing dispute, Amadeus prohibited the publication of the popes decree and many dioceses remained vacant. Amadeus demanded secular approval of clerical postings (bishops, priests, monasteries) and for ecclesiastical acts. Repeated negotiations brought no results, all the while the Vatican pronounced excommunications on secular officials and Amadeus countered with severe measures against clerics. The acquisition of Sardinia in 1720 added more issues about Church rights on the island. It was only under the following pope, Benedict XIII that negotiations were taken up again and an agreement was found in 1727 in which the Church relinquished some its previous rights. Under Amadeus successor, Charles Emmanuel, the Kingdom of Sardinia continued to press the Church hard for further concessions concerning ecclesiastical jurisdiction and taxation up to 1750.

As a result of the revolutions of 1848, King Charles Albert granted the Kingdom a constitution, summoned a liberal cabinet and assumed the leadership for the unification of Italy. That same year the Jesuits were banned, as in most Italian states, and a liberal school law was enacted. In 1849, the archbishops of Turin and Sassari were imprisoned. In 1850, ecclesiastical immunities were lifted and ecclesiastical jurisdiction further restricted. 1851 saw the introduction of regulated theological instruction, 1852 the introduction of civil marriage. In 1853 the office of the Apostolic royal steward was secularized. Laws of 1854 banned monasteries, of 1855 the Ecclesiastical Academy of Superga and as of 1856, regulations followed concerning priests and parish administration and the confiscation of Church lands. As of 1852, these policies were enacted under liberal prime minister of the kingdom, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour who pursued Italian unification with the aim of Rome as the capital. [104]

In 1860, the Kingdom of Sardinia annexed all the Church territories (Romagna, Marche and Umbria) except the Patrimonium Petri and Rome itself which was protected by French troops, The pope excommunicated the "thieves of Church state" Victor Emmanuel proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy and became its first King. Cavour made an offer to the pope, to guarantee the Churchs sovereignty and far-reaching privileges in turn for the Church to give up the city of Rome. Pius IX declined. In 1861, Cavour submitted another offer, adding a regular payment to the pope and the king giving up his right to appoint bishops. Again, the pope declined.

When the French pulled their troops out of Rome due to the Franco-Prussian war, Italy, encouraged by the German envoy von Arnim, seized the remaining Church territory and the city on 20 September 1870 after which Rome became the Italian capital. The Vatican resisted any recognition of the Italian state until 1929. Through the years, the anti-church laws of Piedmont and Sardinia were extended to every expansion and eventually taken over by the new Italian state.

In 1887, under prime minister Crispi, Italy added the abolishment of church tithes; in 1888 it passed a law making access to primary school religious instruction more difficult, in 1889 the pulpit law was added to the criminal code and the law on the "opere pie", putting control of a vast network of endowments and trust funds financing both religious and charitable works into public authority.[105]

Well into the 19th. century, the Catholic Church dominated education in Belgium[106] and every attempt to reform schools was met with fierce resistance by the Catholic Church.[107]

The struggle reached a pivotal point under the liberal government of Walthre Frre-Orban Van Humbeeck (see nl:Regering-Frre-Orban II). From 1879 to 1884 there was a political crisis over state control of education and religious courses in public (see First School War). On 1 June 1879, Frre-Orban passed an Education Act secularizing primary education. The new law imposed recognized diplomas for teachers, stipulated state supervision of all schools and stripped Catholicism of its status as basis of education. Religious instruction in schools was possible outside the curriculum on request of parents. Municipalities were required to supply at least one neutral school and founding or subsidising private schools were banned. A new law on secondary schools was in the same vein. It was to guarantee parents the freedom of choice between religious and neutral schools.[107] By 1883, 3,885 secular schools had opened across the country.

To the Catholic Church this was a declaration of all-out war. It called for a boycott of these new schools and it managed to mobilise almost the entire Catholic camp. Staff and supporters of public schools and parents who sent their children were denied communion and in effect excommunicated. The government cut diplomatic relations with the Vatican and measures against rebellious civil servants and clergy added fire to the heat. The Church required priests to establish a Catholic schools in every parish and attendance of Catholic schools rose from 13 percent to over 60 percent.[108]

In part due to this conflict, the liberals lost the elections in 1884. The Catholic government under Jules Malou amended the Education Law providing public support for religious schools as well and, in 1895, religious education became compulsory in all schools.[107] From then on, with changing majorities in parliament, regulations were made either more in favour of the Church or more in favour of the Liberals, each time to the dissatisfaction of the opposition. The struggle resulted in the development of two opposing school systems: the so-called religious "free schools" and the government schools. The dispute remained unsolved and broke out again in the 1950s (Second School War).[109][110]

In the late 19th century, cultural wars arose over issues of prohibition and education in the United States.[111] The Bennett Law was a highly controversial state law passed in Wisconsin in 1889 that required the use of English to teach major subjects in all public and private elementary and high schools. Because Wisconsin German Catholics and Lutherans each operated large numbers of parochial schools where German was used in the classroom, it was bitterly resented by German-American (and some Norwegian) communities. Although the law was ultimately repealed, there were significant political repercussions, with the Republicans losing the governorship and the legislature, and the election of Democrats to the Senate and House of Representatives.[112][113]

In the United States, the terms "culture war" and "culture wars" refer to conflict in the late 20th and early 21st centuries between religious social conservatives and secular social liberals.[114] This theme of "culture war" was the basis of Patrick Buchanan's keynote speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention.[115] The term "culture war" by 2004 was in common use in the United States by both liberals and conservatives.

Throughout the 1980s, there were battles in Congress and the media regarding federal support for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities that amounted to a war over high culture between neoconservatives and paleoconservatives.[116] Justice Antonin Scalia referenced the term in the Supreme Court case Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), saying "The Court has mistaken a Kulturkampf for a fit of spite." The case concerned an amendment to the Colorado state constitution that prohibited any subdepartment from acting to protect individuals on the basis of sexual orientation. Scalia believed that the amendment was a valid move on the part of citizens who sought "recourse to a more general and hence more difficult level of political decision making than others." The majority disagreed, holding that the amendment violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The term, translated to Hebrew, (Milhemet Tarbut, ) is also frequently used, with similar connotations, in the political debates of Israelhaving been introduced by Jews who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s.[117]

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Kulturkampf - Wikipedia

In 2018, the Frontline Club is partnering with Britains most prestigious non-fiction book prize, The Baillie Gifford Prize, to host a series of events entitled Thinking Allowed. As ever please join us on10 January for an evening of debate, dissent and discussion . Every other month, we will present our audience with a question on a specific contemporary issue and ask two distinguished speakers to argue for their answer.

We are kicking off the first of the series withWho is Winning the Culture Wars?

It has been said that for the last 30 years, the political right won all the arguments about economics and the political left won all the arguments about culture. But in the last few years, it seems that liberals are losing ground across the West, as more nationalistic and socially conservative governments come to power. At the same time, hardly a day passes without a new front being opened in what have become known as the culture wars, whether it be about the nature (or even existence) of institutional racism; the repatriation of museum pieces; the removal of statues of Britains imperial heroes; trans rights, or promotion of diversity as an end in its self. The fierce arguments over safe spaces; free speech; and the right not to be offended are no longer confined to American campuses.

Critics of this new identity politics charge it with the very intolerance and illiberalism it purports to oppose; its advocates argue that they are fighting deeply ingrained prejudice and correcting historic injustice. But who is right?

Toby Mundy is Executive Director of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. In 2000 he founded Atlantic Books, where he was Chief Executive and Publisher until 2014, when he left to start literary agency TMA Limited. He is also chair of trustees ofWimbledon BookFest, a registered charity; a partner at the management and communications consultancyJericho Chambersandchair of the advisory board ofTheSundayTimesEFG Short Story Award.

Munira Mirza is an adviser on arts and philanthropy. She was deputy mayor for education and culture at the Greater London Authority. She has worked for a range of cultural and charitable organisations including the Royal Society of Arts, the independent think tank Policy Exchange, and Tate. In 2009 she completed her PhD in sociology at the University of Kent. She has written extensively about cultural and social policy in the UK. Munira is a member of the boards of the Royal Opera House.

Afua Hirsch isan author, journalist and broadcaster. She was the Guardian correspondent forWest Africa,the social affairs editor for Sky News, and practised law as a human rights barrister. Her first book, Brit(ish) is about Britishness and identity, and will be published in February2018 by Jonathan Cape.

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Thinking Allowed 1: Who is Winning the Culture Wars ...